Date: Tue, 24 Feb 1998 13:36:28 -0500 (EST) X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Windows (v2.33) Message-ID: <7BFA5855DE@mail-gw.uclan.ac.uk> Date: Tue, 24 Feb 1998 17:28:18 GMT+0 Reply-To: Constructed Languages List Sender: Constructed Languages List From: And Rosta Organization: University of Central Lancashire Subject: USAGE: Re: Grammar Evolution and Exceptions To: Multiple recipients of list CONLANG X-UIDL: 43af2d378ae62a0dd423f3225148b982 X-Mozilla-Status: 8003 X-From-Space-Date: Tue Feb 24 13:29:09 1998 X-From-Space-Address: - ObConlang: Is there any morphological or other irregularity in my conlang? No. John Cowan: > > > "Dived" is the original form. "Dove", though still reckoned as > > > non-standard, has become increasingly common through analogy. This > > > is one of the rare analogical changes from the weak to the strong > > > conjugation of verbs in modern times. > > > > Are they so rare? I think of SNUCK, THUNK, SHAT, TWUG. > > Rare in near-standard English, I meant. (Listfolk say DOVE is > now standard.) I have - in error, I discover from you - been teaching my students that _dived_ is a modern regularization of older irregular _dove_. Certainly that scenario is more compatible with the dialectal situation apparent among my students (_dove_ found only among older & less standard speakers). > Is SHAT really an innovation? I always assumed it was original > (documentation on this verb is a bit hard to find, probably). I think I checked that one out once. I'd been teaching that _shat_ was the original preterite form & then discovered it was created by analogy. > I don't know TWUG, but SWOLE appears in older books about nonstandard > American --- it sounds archaic to me now. TWUG is my favourite: it's the preterite form of TWIG = "cotton on to; suss". I presume it's a relatively young word, so the irregular pret must also be relatively young. --And.